A Corporate Leviathan by ParisGreen

One might expect that the offices of a company specializing in luxurious designer clothes and the finest fabrics on the market would have equally luxurious and comfortable office spaces for the employees that keep the enterprise afloat. Surely a business that catered to the choosiest clients, human or otherwise, could afford to provide a workspace where one could stretch their legs and be proud to give their time to the company. This was not the case in this company.

Instead, Elizabeth found herself coordinating and delegating her sales team within a maze of gray and beige cubicles that made a toilet stall look like the Hagia Sophia. At all times she had to mind her elbows lest she knock over a sheaf of reports to the floor or a cup of coffee on her keyboard. It was made worse by the fact that she was a smidge on the tall side, enough that, according to her team, the meager partitions were barely enough to hide the top of her head as she sat. They were packed like sardines, but at least sardines had the luck to be dead before they went in the can.

“I’ve had enough.” Elizabeth announced to her neighbor, Alex, as she stood, “I’m going.”

“Going where?”

“To have a word with upstairs.”

“But didn’t Ryan already-“

“Yes. And his desk has been empty since.”

Ryan Flowers was one of their team members who, like the rest of them, was fed up with the conditions of the office. Last week he decided to go straight to the big man himself. As team leader Elizabeth was responsible for maintaining a chain of command and would have never condoned anyone going over her head, even if she didn’t disagree with the meat of his concerns. Best case scenario was a reprimand or worse, being fired and being asked to clear out their desk.

Except Ryan never came back to clear his desk. It sat just as it did when he left, save for a half cup of coffee and some leftovers that were discarded by the end of the day. Elizabeth had sent multiple emails asking for a confirmation that he was released, and if he had, why he hadn’t come to clear his desk. Not once did Elizabeth get an answer. Every call she made to his personal phone went to voicemail and every text she sent was unanswered. She even asked the janitor who eventually came around to empty Ryan’s belongings into a wastebasket. Still no explanation. It was as if he simply dropped off the face of the earth.

“There’s no excuse for it Alex, for any of it. The CEO practically gets a floor to himself while expecting us to work in these boxes. And the moment someone complains, they go who-knows-where and we’re expected to just deal with being a head short. As team leader, I, more than anyone, deserve to know what the hell happened to my team members, but instead they expect to keep all of us in the dark . But you know what? We deserve better.”

Alex’s eyes lit up during Elizabeth’s incensed speech. She prided herself as a team leader, one who could lead them through obstacles of corporate negligence. Alex, the newest member of her team, seemed to benefit particularly from her pep talks. He came aboard as a shy, somewhat bumbling worker but his productivity blossomed under her wing and now he was one of her most dependable workers, albeit still rather shy.

“You really think they’ll listen?” He asked.

“I’m a team leader. I’ll have a little more sway than Ryan ever did, but I’ll have even more if I have a bit of backup.”

Alex stared at her for a few moments, not quite catching on.

“I meant you, Alex.”

“M-me? But.. I don’t really know what I can do…”

“You’re my go-to man, Alex. Whenever I need something done, you get it done in record time. I’m not sure if there’s anything more I could ask for to get this done than to have my star worker at my side backing me up.”

“W-Woah… You really mean that, Elizabeth?”

“Every word.”

Alex looked down at his feet and readjusted his tie. He cleared his throat a few times before replying, “Well, if you have my back… then I guess I got yours.”

===================

Elizabeth and Alex were the only ones on the elevator as it rose to the floor of the head corporate offices. They asked around their floor for anyone else willing to come along and back them up but found no takers. None of them wanted to risk getting chewed out by their boss or worse. Still, Elizabeth had no plans to back out of the idea, and Alex’s resolve seemed to only grow with each passing moment.

“We got a couple of signatures on a petition at least,” he said as the elevator rose to the top floor. “That should be worth something even with just the two of us.”

The doors finally dinged and slid open, “I really hope so,” was her response as they stepped out, “fingers crossed.”

To simply say the CEO had the entire floor to himself was an understatement. The elevators opened to an expansive foyer, the centerpiece of which was a marble fountain with gentle dribbles of water cascading down. The ceilings rose twice as high as any of the floors below it, sacrificing an entire floor of potential office space to make room for luxurious light fixtures. Technically, there were other corporate offices on the same floor for those who worked immediately under the CEO, their doors spaced evenly through carpeted double wide halls. While not quite as large as the CEO's, their offices were certainly much more comfortable than the cubicles on Elizabeth’s floor.

The way to the CEO’s office wasn’t hard to spot. Just beyond the fountain was a set of huge, oaken double doors. As the two approached Elizabeth noticed the nameplate fastened to the doors,


CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
REGINALD “PRIN” O’REILY
DO NOT DISTURB

“Short for ‘princess’” Elizabeth muttered to her colleague.

“Excuse me?” asked a hushed voice, “Do you have an appointment?”

Just to the left of the oaken doors sat a short, brown haired man at a desk with more space than Elizabeth’s and Alex’s desks combined. Much of that space went unused save for a computer, telephone, and a pair of pens carefully laid out. He stared at them through a pair of glasses with wide, saucer-like lenses. His suit fit loosely on him which, together with the oversized desk and doors, made him appear woefully undersized for his surroundings.

“No.” retorted Elizabeth, “It’s an emergency meeting of sorts concerning workplace conditions–“

“Uh uhh N-no you can’t! You absolutely can not go in without an appointment. Prin– Mr. O’Reilly you see is very… preoccupied with some important business at the moment and absolutely can not be disturbed.”

Before Elizabeth could respond, a voice with regal air about it blared through the telephone's intercom system, “Victor, there’s a spot on one of these bananas. Send for a replacement right away, you know how I feel about bruised foods.”

Elizabeth shot Victor a hard glare and tried hard not to crumple the documents in her hand with a clenched fist. She checked on Alex who likewise was giving the secretary the evil eye. “Important business, huh?” She motioned Alex towards the huge oaken doors. Victor cried after them.

“Wait! Wait! I might be able to squeeze you in for next week!” but Elizabeth had already shoved her way past the doors.

If the foyer was luxurious, then the CEO’s office was a monument to sheer opulence. The ceiling rose even higher here, complete with baroque vaulted ceilings and a chandelier that glittered with the sunlight coming through massive windows on the far end of the office. The walls were lined with towering bookshelves, a bar stocked with countless wines and spirits, and even medieval suits of armor with swords and maces on full display. Racks of designer suits and jackets were clustered into a far corner of the room near an enormous room divider that looked as if you could hide a single story home behind it. Elizabeth and Alex walked across a crimson carpet covered in elaborate floral designs that stretched the nearly tennis court distance from the doors to the main desk, a ridiculous mass of polished mahogany. Behind that desk sat the CEO who everyone, purportedly even himself, referred to as ‘Prin’.

Nonhuman people were not unknown in the world, but pinning down exactly what Prin was was difficult. He was a man of a relatively skinny build with ruby red hair that complimented his mahogany skin. His pointed, nearly twelve inch long ears and prominent, pointed nose gave him the vague resemblance of a bat, albeit one with a long brush-tipped tail. Whatever he was, he dressed the part as CEO of a fashion empire in his tie, vest, blazer and purple eyeshadow, all from the most exclusive pages of his company’s catalog of products.

“You’re not Victor.” he remarked as Elizabeth and Alex approached, “and that certainly doesn’t look like a basket of fruit in either of your hands.”

Alex was the first to speak, “It’s a formal complaint and petition.” his tone was firm yet wavering and he stood just a step back behind Elizabeth. She didn’t blame him for stay a bit behind, it took some serious guts to stand up to your boss. “We can’t work in these cramped conditions any longer!”

Prin brushed what appeared to be a perfectly good banana off his desk into an unseen wastebasket, wearing a frown of measured annoyance. “I’m sorry, but you two must be lost. Unless Victor got the nameplates mixed up I don’t believe that door reads ‘Complaint Department’. He’ll be more than happy to provide you with a map of the office, I’m sure.”

“Your ‘Complaint Department’ is a joke!” Elizabeth shot back, “It’s nothing but a bureaucracy designed to stifle dissent and keep employees from speaking up!”

“It most certainly is not!” Prin balked. The edges of his mouth seemed to stretch and shift supernaturally with his expressions. Together with the long ears that rose and fell with his tone, expressive eyes, and broad gesticulations punctuating every other sentence, it made for a very dramatic performance. He continued, “and even if it was, which it isn’t, it doesn’t seem to be working considering the two of you managed to find your way into my office anyways. Honestly, if it was their job to keep you quiet, which, again, it isn’t, I’d expect them to do a much better job of it if that was a thing I happened to pay them for…which, for the record, I don’t.”


“Hold on,” Alex sounded like his mind was still catching up, “you pay them to… not do what?”

“It’s doing exactly what you want it to.” Elizabeth talked past Alex and Prin, “But now you have no choice but to listen to what we have to say.” She slapped a sheet of paper onto the desk and pushed it towards Prin. “This is a list of demands. More desk space and floor space afforded to each employee in the sales department in addition to greater transparency in company management.”

Prin’s face scrunched with disgust as he held the sheet between his clawed thumbs and forefingers as if the document was fresh from a dumpster or the very act of having to acknowledge it caused him pain. “Blegh. Organized labor…not to mention the penmanship of these signatures is atrocious. It’s like a middle school yearbook. And transparency?”

“In particular with regards to layoffs and firings, prompted of course by the radio silence from corporate on what became of Ryan Flowers.”

Prin stared at Elizabeth. He didn’t wrinkle his nose in annoyance or spit a thinly veiled insult, he simply focused on her. Elizabeth felt the tone in the room shift. She wasn’t sure if it was for better or worse.

“Who?” he asked plainly.

“Ryan Flowers.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“A member of my sales team that after going, without my permission, to corporate has not been seen in or out of the office since. Not by his coworkers. Not by his neighbors. Not by anyone.”

Prin chuckled, “Darling, this is a fashion company. Not a detective agency-

“Do NOT ‘darling’ me!” Elizabeth slammed her fist on the desk’s polished surface, earning a nasty glare from the beastly CEO. “Are you saying that it isn’t in a company’s interest to know what happened to an employee who suddenly vanished?”

“What I’m saying is that I know nothing about the man!”

“Last time anyone heard from him he said he was headed to your office.”

“Perhaps this Ryan Flowers got lost on the way there, considering I never saw him!”

“Horseshit.”

Prin nearly knocked over his leather chair as he suddenly stood, slamming his palms on his desk. His ears were pulled back like an enraged cat and his teeth were barred revealing sharp, pearly fangs as he spoke. “You. insolent. Little– do you honestly expect me to keep track of every employee that walks in here complaining about how tiny their desk is? You three barge in making demands when I’m bankrolling your company blazers–“

“So you did see him?” Alex asked sheepishly.

Prin’s voice lowered as both he and Elizabeth turned to him, “Pardon?”

“W-well you said ‘you three’. It’s just Elizabeth and I right now so… Ryan must be the third.”

Elizabeth turned back to Prin. He shifted uncomfortably as he leaned on his desk. He drummed the polished surface with his claws and rapidly tapped his foot. He looked down and around the two of them, like he was literally searching for a counterpoint floating nearby. Even his tail swished about in a frantic pattern behind him, something he seemed to notice when he forced it back behind the desk.

Prin opened his mouth several times before finally getting the words out, Elizabeth could tell the CEO was trying hard not to lose his composure, “Well now that you mention it… ah! Yes! You’ve refreshed my memory, Mister…

“Alex-

“Whatever. Yes, he did come by. Something about elbow room. Of course since he shirked the proper chain of command he had to be let go, not quite unlike another two employees of mine if they don’t leave in the next sixty seconds.” He pressed a button on his desk, “Victor, get these miscreants the door.”

“So do you know where he is?” Elizabeth asked.

Prin had turned his attention to a document on his desk, not bothering to look up, “No. Fifty-five seconds.”

Elizabeth didn’t move, neither did Alex. Even when the doors far behind them opened.

His tone grew more stern, “Forty-five seconds…”

“There’s something you know that we don’t.”

“Forty-”

Elizabeth slammed her hands back on the desk, “How about we sue you through the ass?”, she shouted at her boss.

“Fucking hell! Could you not?”, Prin barked, his razor sharp teeth clearly visible as his brow furrowed with rage, “I just had this refinished–”


“–and don’t think for a second that when we do that we won’t find some shady-ass shit going on here.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I think the boss sitting in his own little Taj Mahal while his employes are working in a fucking mosh pit is going to look a little suspect to the average jury. People might think there's more to this company’s problems than just elbow room. Pretty soon they might even see fraud in big red letters written all over it.”

Prin was on his feet again, his amethyst eyeshadow added a glamorous flair to his icy glare, “You dare accuse me-”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. Just observing what’ll pop up in a courtroom.”

“OhohohoHo! So this is a threat, then?”

Alex nudged her, “Elizabeth…”

“–We have him on the ropes. Call it a promise, Prin.”

“Do you really think you want to come to blows with my legal department?”

“Don’t have to if you tell us what happened to Ryan.”

“Are you FUCKING BRAINDEAD, woman? For the last time, I know nothing!”

Their screaming match echoed in the cavernous office. Elizabeth refused to relent, “As far as anyone can tell he never stepped off this floor! So unless you don’t want to come to blows with me, I suggest you spit it out!”

One of Prin’s eyebrows rose behind his ruby red bangs, “Was that another threat?”, he asked more inquisitively this time.

“It’s whatever it needs to be.”

Elizabeth and Prin stared each other down for nearly a minute, neither of them saying another word or even taking their eyes off of one another. Elizabeth knew she probably crossed essentially every professional boundary there was, but at this point she didn’t care. She’d rather be carried out of the building standing up for her team than take the corporate neglect and abuse lying down.

Prin was the first to speak. A smirk had stretched on one side of his face, though he looked far from happy, “Oh well, I suppose negotiations are in order then?”

He pressed the button on his intercom again, “Victor, the doors.” The huge doors on the far end of the hall closed again. With another press of a button the curtains of the huge windows behind him were drawn together as the lights in the ceiling brightened to compensate.

“We won’t take any less than-

“Oh, you two will get your answers and new accommodations soon enough,” he chimed with a dismissive wave of his hand, “but right now I’d like to make myself a little more comfortable before we carve out any deals. If you’d excuse me.”

Prin pushed away his leather roller chair and walked towards the massive room divider that cordoned off an entire corner of the room. It was three times larger than necessary and the fact that Prin was a bit shorter than Elizabeth made made the divider even more ridiculous. Perhaps he meant for it to cover his ego?

“We didn’t come here to see you try on a new pair of pants!” Elizabeth called out after him, though Prin didn’t bother responding as he disappeared behind the screen. She had half a mind going after him, but seeing your boss in their underwear probably didn’t do wonders for negotiations. Maybe in other contexts it did, but that wasn’t the case here.


Elizabeth really hoped that wasn’t the case here.


She and Alex stood waiting for Prin to come out so the negotiations, whatever they might be, could start. Before long there was a bit of a commotion of scraping and heavy thuds from behind the screen, as if Prin was rearranging furniture back there. Probably just more nonsense to waste more of their time.

Still she waited, feeling more impatient as more inexplicable sounds emerged from behind the screen before finally Prin’s tail poked out. At least, it looked like Prin’s tail. It had the same Ruby red brush of hair at the tip like his and still the same mahogany brown as the rest of him. Only bigger.

Much bigger.

“Uh, Elizabeth?” Alex nudged her again.

“Just some expensive trick.” She assured him, “Probably thinks he can scare us into running out empty handed with a giant puppet of his tail.” For how life-like it was it was quite a trick for sure. She wondered if he tried to pull the same trick on Ryan when he came last week. No doubt Prin would give up after a minute or so and reveal the wires and pulleys he used to pull it off and use it as an excuse to flaunt his wealth or genius or whatever.

She kept that idea up until the rest of Prin walked out.

At least, it looked like Prin? Some of it did at least. The upper part, the redhead with the smug, punchable face and torso dressed in a sky blue shirt and brown vest was still definitely Prin but below his waist– below his upper part’s waist –was something else.

Elizabeth could best describe it as being in the shape of a dragon. Prin’s brown skin took the place of scales though he was a shade lighter on his underside than his back. All the way down his monstrous back his deep red hair extended as a mane that terminated at the tip of his tail. Most striking of all was the number of limbs. Below his ‘normal’ waist Prin sprouted a pair of arms ending in clawed hands clutching his trousers. Below that were a third set of limbs themselves followed lastly by a set of thickly haunched hind legs that together bore his weight on the carpeted floor. Again, nonhuman persons weren’t uncommon in the world and Elizabeth had met quite a few, but she had never seen anything remotely like this.

Not to mention he was impossibly huge. Earlier, Prin probably couldn’t have touched the top of the room divider even if he stood on Elizabeth’s shoulders. Now, he draped the blazer he was wearing earlier over the divider’s top edge without so much as needing to pick up the mid legs of his draconian body. The three story ceiling suddenly seemed a lot less superfluous.

“So.” Prin addressed the two of them with an almost cheerful tone. He rested his chin on his hand as his more monstrous arms dexterously creased out the folds of his trousers, “You want to know what became of Ryan?”